Trump shares conspiracy that ‘everyone is lying’ about coronavirus to damage his re-election chances

Donald Trump has shared a conspiracy theory with his 83.3 million followers that doctors are lying about the coronavirus pandemic to prevent him from being re-elected in November.

Mr Trump retweeted accusations from gameshow host Chuck Woolery on Twitter on Monday that claimed “everyone is lying” about Covid-19, without comment.

“The most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19. Everyone is lying. The Centres for Disease Control (CDC), media, Democrats, our doctors, not all but most ,that we are told to trust,” Mr Woolery said.

“I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of it.”

Neither Mr Woolery nor Mr Trump provided any evidence for the claims that officials have been lying about the ongoing pandemic.

The attack comes as Mr Trump’s strained relationship with top infectious disease doctor Antony Fauci and the CDC continue to deteriorate.

The White House attempted to discredit Dr Fauci doctor on Sunday by saying that “several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr Fauci has been wrong on things,” NBC News reported.

They also distributed lists of statements Dr Fauci made early in the pandemic that turned out later to be wrong as the world’s understanding of the disease developed, The Washington Post first reported.

Dr Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has frequently dissented from Mr Trump’s reassurance that the US is controlling the virus successfully and has on many occasions contradicted the president.

Most recently, Dr Fauci disagreed that the country’s strategy to tackle the respiratory disease is working in an interview with FiveThirtyEight last week.

“As a country, when you compare us to other countries, I don’t think you can say we’re doing great. I mean, we’re just not,” he said.

The president himself also hit out at the doctor on Thursday, telling Fox News that Dr Fauci “has made a lot of mistakes”.

Dr Fauci declined to comment when contacted by The Post.

Last week, Mr Trump also clashed with the CDC as he insisted that their new guidelines for re-opening schools were “expensive” and “tough”.

“I disagree with @CDCgov on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools. While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will be meeting with them!!!” the president tweeted last week.

Mr Trump’s continued animosity with disease experts comes as he faces a slump in a number of approval polls over his handling of the public health crisis ahead of November’s election.

A new ABC News and Ipsos poll released on Friday showed just one in three Americans approve of Mr Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and his handling of race relations.

The poll revealed that 67 per cent of those surveyed disapprove of the president’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, his lowest approval rating on the issue to date since the poll began in March.

Dr Fauci on the other hand has proved popular with the public since he began making frequent appearances at the task force’s televised briefings back in March.

A New York Times and Sienna College poll found last month that 67 per cent of voters trusted Dr Fauci for accurate information about the coronavirus, while the president only saw support from 26 per cent.

The ongoing pandemic continues to surge across the US with more than 3.3 million people having been infected with the novel coronavirus disease as of Monday.

On Sunday, Florida, one of the worst-hit states by the second surge in infections, reported a record increase of more than 15,000 new cases of Covid-19 in 24 hours as states across the south and west continue to see spikes of the disease.

Over 135,000 people have died across the country from coronavirus, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University.

Additional reporting by Reuters